Eight Things to know about redditgifts

1. redditgifts is a new way to spread holiday cheer worldwide.

redditgifts is a giant online gift exchange that started connecting internet stranger-friends around the world with one another in 2009. Last year 89,421 people worldwide participated in Secret Santa 2013.

Think about that for a second: 89,421 internet strangers from 160 different countries put their faith in one another and sent gifts around the world. Pretty awesome, right?

Participating is easy. It only takes a few minutes to sign up and create a profile. Once you do, you wait until matching day, when we run a big program that matches each person to someone else in a giant daisy chain. You’ll be given a person’s username, and you can stalk that person (in a friendly way) to find the perfect gift for them and mail it off. Someone else will be doing the same for you, and when you get it, you can post photos of your awesome gift online so we can all celebrate together.

2. We host dozens of themed exchanges throughout the year.

What started out as just a Secret Santa exchange has become much, much more. First we added Arbitrary Day—the halfway point each year because one year is just too long to wait—but even that wasn’t enough. Now we host gift exchanges year round, and there’s something for everyone: zombies, t-shirts, yarn, board games, Nintendo, books & comics, Halloween, mugs, nostalgia, Star Trek & Star Wars, kitchen goods, basketball, magnets, and much, much more. And if we haven’t done it yet, there’s a good chance we will be soon.

3. Participation is free, and it always will be.

We will never charge you to join and participate in redditgifts exchanges. We do recommend you spend around $20 on your gift, but that will go straight to your giftee. We will never take a dime from you. We won’t even ask for your credit card info.

4. It’s all about the giving.

We’re in the business of creating happiness. Science has proven that money can buy happiness, but only when you’re buying a gift for someone else.

The people who have the most fun and enjoy their redditgifts experience the most are the ones who spend the time to put together a really thoughtful gift for their match. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money—it can even be handmade!—but the more personalized your gift is, the better.

5. It's all about the community, too.

redditgifts participant thanks_for_breakfast put it this way: “redditgifts is a group of total strangers from all over the world who have managed to form a community held together by one thing—being thoughtful and generous to one another. It's amazing that a group of people who have never met each other, and probably never will, can come together to form such a strong, connected community. Being a part of redditgifts is being a part of something huge and magical. If Santa were real, he'd be jealous.”

6. We like breaking world records.

The redditgifts Secret Santa exchange started in 2009 with over 4,000 participants. In 2010, it quadrupled to over 17,000 people in 102 countries.

In 2011, we set a Guinness world record, with 30,250 people completing the exchange. In 2012, we broke that record, with 44,805 participants, and last year we more than doubled the previous year’s record. This year, we’re planning to double again. Are you going to join us in making history?

7. You can help support us by buying Elf status.

Participating in exchanges is free, but it takes a full staff to run them, and that staff needs to eat. So we’ve created redditgifts Elves, which is an awesome but completely optional membership that gives you extra perks and helps keep us running. Some of the benefits you receive include the ability to suggest and vote on future gift exchange themes, a trophy on your reddit and redditgifts profiles, special privileges to only be matched with other Elves, and more. With the purchase of a year's subscription, receive a special limited edition gift as our special thanks for being an Elf.

8. Our mission is to bring more happiness to the world.

Learn more about our mission and how we got our start in this video of redditgifts founder Dan McComas (kickme444) at a TEDx event.